


#33

by Schweet



Series: What Would I Even Tell Her [33]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, mental health, psychiatric hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26377210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schweet/pseuds/Schweet
Series: What Would I Even Tell Her [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605673





	#33

Hello Elizabeth

There’s something I have never told you

- _ Or well, anyone really _

_ And no, it's not the fact that I’ve been hopelessly in love with you for over seven years _

_ Because I have told people about that, just not you _ -

It’s about when I was in the psych ward

You were the first to call me

And I will never forget that

When I heard the phone ring, I just ignored it, because no one had any reason to call me, only my family knew where I was, and they had been here every visiting hour in the past two days

When that patient called out my name

I was so lost

I thought maybe Mommy was calling me, maybe she had thought up some follow up point about how she loves me and would be totally destroyed if I did successfully kill myself

So I answered the phone in confusion and slight annoyance

And what answered me wasn’t my mother’s tear stained voice

But a hesitantly joyful chorus of your family’s voices

When I heard your voices, I learned that the movies do not exaggerate about the way your body gives out when you finally reach a bastion of safety

I had to hold on to the bar bolted into the wall

- _ so no one could use it as a weapon _ -

In order to not collapse from the weakness in my joints and the buckling in my knees

My head swam from more than the obvious tears

From the exhaustion that hit like a train of bricks when I realized you all actually loved me, that you would continue to choose to love me

From the realization that I could set down the yoke that my skin had started to welcome out of the desperation of survival, that my mutilated spine struggled to support

From the knowledge that you would carry it until I could pull myself up from the hole in which I had hidden in for the past year, that I would once again see the stars reflect in my own eyes

From the relief that I would never again have to stand alone under the weight upon my shoulders, that you would bear half the burden that I was convinced I was strong enough to carry despite the fact that I stood in the muck of quicksand without an oxygen tank

I don’t remember if I said anything when I heard your voices crackle through the crappy hospital phone speaker

I wouldn’t be surprised if I cried out in anguish

I hope I at the very least I acknowledged you

I know your parents said something

But I could not process anything besides the fact that you all had chosen to call me

Had wanted to speak to me

When I had tried to kill myself

When I willingly put myself in a psychiatric hospital

When I admitted to the world that I was crazy

I remember the hesitancy in your mother’s voice and your father’s support

And then all I heard was your voice

Elizabeth

I have no idea what you said to me

But I knew you were telling me that you loved me

Elizabeth

I don’t remember telling you anything other than

“Hold on it's snack time and I want my pudding”

And

“We’re only supposed to have 10 minute phone calls”

Elizabeth

We had been talking for fifteen minutes when I remembered that and then we continued to talk for fifteen more

You would not let me hang up the phone no matter how much my anxiety screamed at me in terror of breaking even such a stupid rule as that

I still don’t know why the nurses didn’t come and hang up the phone on us

Maybe it's because I came alive at the mere sound of your voice

Maybe it's because I was smiling for the first time since I had arrived in the ward

I was smiling and it wasn’t the smile of a bitter widow or a feral honey badger

It was a smile fueled by the knowledge that I really truly am loved by people who actively choose to love me, instead out of the obligation of shared blood

In the knowledge that if my demons were wrong about this, then maybe they were wrong about some other things too

Maybe all of it

Elizabeth

I started to heal the moment your voice came through the phone

Elizabeth

I went to bed with a peace in my heart that I hadn’t felt in over two years

I didn’t wake up to a soggy pillow with snot clinging to my cheeks

I woke up to the 5:30 blood pressure check with maybe not an excitement, but at least an interest, to what the next day would bring

The next few days I decided to work hard

I set the goal to get myself out in time to see Lily’s first high school volleyball game

I tried new medication

Medication that didn’t make me want to kill myself every five minutes

Medication that made me gain 60 pounds in two months but again, at least I haven’t wanted to die since I first swallowed it from a tiny plastic cup

Elizabeth

I started painting with strokes of joy and fascination that day you called

Instead of desperation and disgust

Elizabeth

My life pivoted in the moment your voices reached my ear

Elizabeth

You were the first to call me

And I will never forget that


End file.
